Model Railway Forum

Following some discussion on another forum, I thought I would have a go at building a Fireless Locomotive. These were typically used at paper mills, and chemical and petroleum factories, where sparks would be dangerous. They had a large steam reservoir instead of a boiler where hot water/steam at high pressure was stored, and re-charged from the factory's own steam raising plant. They could then operate for an hour or two between charges.

I used a chassis from a cheapo Hornby 0-4-0, in my case a Holden side tank, and then built the superstructure using spare material. The steam reservoir is part of a R711 play train 'integral' Shell tank wagon, the rest was plastic card and assorted plastic sections.

One drawback is the Hornby mechanism is difficult to run slowly, so realistic operation is impossible, but it looks OK.

Just a bit of fun.

It does indeed look the part. Nice job. R-

That didn’t take you long LC. Looks just right.

Or you could have saved yourself the bother and bought the Liliput L103000 fireless loco. Might be HO but doesn't look out of place in my gas works

Bet that cost more that nothing. Nice though.

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:09 pm Bet that cost more that nothing. Nice though.

Only a little . Comes DCC ready with front and rear lights built in. Nice slow runner too.

Yes, mine actually cost less than nothing, because I was able to recycle the mechanism and the wagon which otherwise I would throw away, or at least chuck into the 'spares' box. All the plasticard was also taken from the recycling box, because I keep any usable offcuts of that material in a box and rummage through it rather than cut into a new sheet. I had already re-used the axleguards off the tank wagon when I slimmed down the underframes of some Triang Cemflo wagons last year. I still have the solebars, but I re-used the buffer beams from another of those wagons in the fireless loco build. So apart from some Slater's Mekpak, and some time, it cost me nowt. And it was fun to do as well.